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Microsoft makes source code for MS-DOS and Word for Windows available to public

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Re: Microsoft makes source code for MS-DOS and Word for Windows available to public

#61

Post by tanzam75 »

voidlogic wrote: post #33
RyanZAG wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only are you not allowed to distribute it by the license, actually distributing it would get you sued for patent violation. Using anything you find in the code will probably get you sued for patent violation, too. EDIT: I can just imagine a future lawsuit: A: Did you read the MS-DOS source code released by Microsoft on XX? We have logs to show you downloaded it. B: Yes, but that has nothing to do with this lawsui…

Don't patents only last 15-20 years?

Right, any patents from 1983 and 1991 have expired. Besides which, I don't think Microsoft had any patents in 1983.

P.S. Google Patents is useless for answering this question. "Referenced by" is included in the search, so any patent from 1983 that is ever referenced by a Microsoft patent (from any year) shows up in the results.

Re: Microsoft makes source code for MS-DOS and Word for Windows available to public

#62

Post by tanzam75 »

pygy_ wrote: post #53
IgorPartola wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True. Except if you are someone like DOSBox or FreeDOS and want to know how/why some quirk happens in MS-DOS that makes some program go, but not in your code, now you can figure out what's up. In reality, getting the Windows source released so that the Wine team can do this would be much more useful. From what I understand Windows has a lot more undocumented but widely used API's that Wine tries to emulate by trial a…

> Except if you are someone like DOSBox or FreeDOS MS-DOS has been disassembled and reverse engineered to death by these teams, and there's little if anything at all left to discovered.

They have the x86 assembly code.

What they don't have are the comments.

Re: Microsoft makes source code for MS-DOS and Word for Windows available to public

#63

Post by smacktoward »

IgorPartola wrote: post #49
ct1 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MS-DOS is maybe the ugliest operating system I ever had the displeasure of using. There's very little to learn from operating system design point of view in there, and better sources are available under more permissive licenses -- ie open source licenses. It looks like a PR stunt to me.

True. Except if you are someone like DOSBox or FreeDOS and want to know how/why some quirk happens in MS-DOS that makes some program go, but not in your code, now you can figure out what's up. In reality, getting the Windows source released so that the Wine team can do this would be much more useful. From what I understand Windows has a lot more undocumented but widely used API's that Wine tries to emulate by trial a…

Or if you're the ghost of Gary Kildall, and you want to find out whether Tim Paterson and Bill Gates really did rip you off or not.

Re: Microsoft makes source code for MS-DOS and Word for Windows available to public

#64

Post by wvenable »

ct1 wrote: post #44
RyanZAG wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only are you not allowed to distribute it by the license, actually distributing it would get you sued for patent violation. Using anything you find in the code will probably get you sued for patent violation, too. EDIT: I can just imagine a future lawsuit: A: Did you read the MS-DOS source code released by Microsoft on XX? We have logs to show you downloaded it. B: Yes, but that has nothing to do with this lawsui…

MS-DOS is maybe the ugliest operating system I ever had the displeasure of using. There's very little to learn from operating system design point of view in there, and better sources are available under more permissive licenses -- ie open source licenses. It looks like a PR stunt to me.

Hey look it's an unnecessary negative comment on HN!

It's not a PR stunt, it's a part of computing history (whether you like it or not). I spent a lot of time hacking around the internals of DOS and I think this might be a fascinating read. I remember pouring over Ralf Brown's Interrupt List and stepping through various DOS memory structures trying to create some impossible app. Good times.

Re: Microsoft makes source code for MS-DOS and Word for Windows available to public

#66

Post by joe_the_user »

RyanZAG wrote: post #24
spodek wrote: post #10

Under what license? Can we view, modify, redistribute? No one wants to get sued for these things, or being found to violate some end user license agreement with some other Microsoft software. On the other hand, I'd love to find out that people viewing this code contribute an improvement that no one in Microsoft saw in decades that helps them improve something today, leading them to soften their stance on Free Softwar…

Not only are you not allowed to distribute it by the license, actually distributing it would get you sued for patent violation. Using anything you find in the code will probably get you sued for patent violation, too. EDIT: I can just imagine a future lawsuit: A: Did you read the MS-DOS source code released by Microsoft on XX? We have logs to show you downloaded it. B: Yes, but that has nothing to do with this lawsui…

Please up vote the point of patents lasting 15-20 years and down vote this confused claim.

Software patents are bad enough without gratuitous fear-inducing claims added.

Re: Microsoft makes source code for MS-DOS and Word for Windows available to public

#68

Post by Someone »

tensenki wrote: post #39
squintychino wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you have to redistribute something in order to modify it? Just modify it for your own personal use.

I can't think of a single use case where I would want to hack on a 32 year old OS without distributing it.

Not quite the same, but it may be good enough for you: I guess you can distribute a patch, combined with a URL to the original download.

Re: Microsoft makes source code for MS-DOS and Word for Windows available to public

#69

Post by masklinn »

sremani wrote: post #54
masklinn wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bell Labs was founded by Ma Bell, it's hard to top that and MSR does not come close.

are you privy to research in either of the organizations. I know its great to revere age old organizations but as we are speaking the best research is probably being conducted in a place we least expect. I am not privy to research at Ma Bell or only the published elements of Microsoft Research - so your reaction is more of an instinct than any factual basis.

I've got no idea what you're talking about, I was responding to GP's comment about diametrically opposed spirits in subsets of the same organisation.

Re: Microsoft makes source code for MS-DOS and Word for Windows available to public

#70

Post by bunderbunder »

spodek wrote: post #10

Under what license? Can we view, modify, redistribute? No one wants to get sued for these things, or being found to violate some end user license agreement with some other Microsoft software. On the other hand, I'd love to find out that people viewing this code contribute an improvement that no one in Microsoft saw in decades that helps them improve something today, leading them to soften their stance on Free Softwar…

> Under what license? Can we view, modify, redistribute?

Just speaking for myself, I come down pretty firmly in the "Don't know, don't care" camp for both questions.

In a world where FreeDOS exists, there just isn't any practical value to having the source code to MS-DOS 2.0 available under a truly open license. That code's only interesting as a historical exhibit. If all we can do is look at it and go, "Huh, so that's how that worked", that's fine with me.

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